1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method, system, and program for maintaining information in database tables and performing operations on data in the database tables.
2. Description of the Related Art
A workflow program allows businesses and other organizations to define their business operations as a computer model known as a workflow. A workflow defines a series of processes to be performed by users at a client computer. The user activities at the client computers may involve updating an electronic form, reviewing information, etc. After one user in the workflow performs a specified action, the work item or other information is then routed to one or more further nodes where further action may be taken. For instance, an on-line purchase of a product may involve numerous steps, such as receiving the customer order, routing the customer order to the credit department to process the bill and then routing the order to the shipment department to prepare the shipment. Once the shipment is prepared, the product may be shipped and information on the purchase is then transferred to the customer service department to take any further action. Each of these processes may be defined as nodes in a workflow. A workflow program would then route the customer order to the business agents designated to handle the job. For instance, the initial order would be received by the order department and then routed to a person in shipping and billing. Once the bill and package are prepared, a further invoice may be forwarded to shipping. After shipping sends the package, the shipping agent may then enter information into the invoice and forward the electronic invoice to customer service for any follow up action.
A workflow is designed using workflow software, such as the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) MQSeries** Workflow software product. A process modeler is a person that analyzes the business operations, determines how the information related to the operations is routed electronically to client computers, and then defines a workflow model of the operations. The MQSeries Workflow provides a buildtime tool used to create a workflow. The workflow model created using this buildtime tool is coded in the FlowMark Definition Language (FDL). The FDL comprises an ASCII file including processing actions to perform on workflow objects to implement a workflow. The FDL file including a workflow design is stored in a buildtime database. Workflow models in the buildtime database are then exported from the buildtime database into the MQSeries runtime database for execution. An import/export utility is provided to access the FDL workflow files from the buildtime database. This utility provides an involved language and syntax for invoking the utility to import and export FDL files. Further details of the buildtime database are described in the IBM publication “Getting Started With Buildtime, Version 3.3”, IBM document no. SH12-6286-05 (Mar. 2001)
Notwithstanding current techniques for managing FDL files, there is a need in the art for further flexible and easy to use tools for manipulating FDL files in the runtime database.